december sixth

attempt at funk + alienated sex life = weird conflict.
I wonder if we write about each other at the same times.
Inability to translate geometric shapes
into comprehensible english combined
with not mentioning obvious lies.
Sullen silent treatment.
can't piece you back together.
can't build puzzles, never could.
three dee feeds me seedy wheaties with derrida on the box.
look I even name drop in prose poems.
new jacket new jacket new jack swing;
prince and bath towels: everything is DAMP,
your body is COLD, your face PREPOSTEROUS.

each memory aching with retroactive anticipation;
each phonecall a piece of bad news;
each and every, hot and heavy, weightless.

your beautiful eyelids
smoke exhaled
the full body cold shiver
that never often
enough
big toothed
grin

this is not the way I remember you

half dialed
dialated pupils
the masquerade where
I dressed up like me
but didn't feel
anything
other than hunger
nonsexual
and the wonder
of how
I
can
even
pretend to be a writer.

A brief song idea.

Am I on your mind?
Would it be too unkind to ask this question of you?
And am I in your face?
Would it be out of place for me to put to test the best of what you've said?

Fogs swirl ambient
the lust of sedimentary
symmetry in layers
Euclidian nonsense
can't account for your shape
across the void
a choice;
I no longer hear your voice
louder than my own

And am I on your mind?
Would it be too unkind to ask this question of you?
And am I on your face?
Would it be out of place to make a graceful gesture?

Perks of understanding
a cemetery map
the male heart is weak
stale when complete
soft imagined skin
the loss inside the win
a choice;
I no longer hear your voice
in scarcely audible physique

Patrick Joseph Grant is in lava.
WCWs.
William Carlos Williams.
World Championship Wrestling.
Why Create Woefulness?

Massive shadows sink in my cells
and I wonder why I've never written a slow jam for you to dance to.

In fact, I've only ever written one real love song. Blah. Fuck meanderings. Back to Karamazov.

ooh, what can I do.

I imagine the glass enclosure,
screaming larvae, looking in
on our lovemaking.
You take my fluids hungrily;
I would not kill because I can,
but because I hate,
because our nights
blend so seamlessly together,
fur pressed and elegant,
a paint set unopened,
a canvas unstretched.

new incredibly joyful pop song.

gonna have a shower and shave my head

it's funny how things turn out

gonna have a shower and shave my head

it's funny how things turn out.

1MS (to put my face on your face)

inside inside inside inside
mascara flowing down pine trees
shedding needle and dimes
nickels and crimes at the same time
osmium nighttime
snow lights drenched black
captured and entangled
by the insurmountable and vague
ambivalence of the white noise.

in the distance there is a siren,
syrup pulling through the eardrum
heated with bleach and melancholy.

Simone Simone Simone Simone
heavy canvas bags of wine
crass and undelivered graciousness
fading and fast and fast and fading
slowly creeping
downwards and upwards
over your aged face.

With a haircut
similar to your son's;
"I don't know you're a lesbian."

Presently, had you been there,
seen me dressed
the way I
was.
You might have let me.

Nietzsche is overtaking me. As is Dostoevsky. And they're working together! Hooray for paper proposals.

I've been having dreams about people I literally haven't seen in person in years. Does this mean that I miss you? What are you, other than close to me alphabetically? Coding.

I got a noise complaint on Friday for listening to Leonard Cohen and Jim O'Rourke (Not together. Songs from a Room and The Visitor, respectively. Although if there was a Leonard Cohen record produced by Jim O'Rourke, I think the world would collapse in on itself.) My response is Daydream Nation. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. Does that sound simple enough?

The Grim Preachers "Tales from Hellcat Diner" CD Release party is on Saturday night and I am very very stoked. It will be a lot of fun and a good last hurrah for this line-up of the band. Inevitably some of us are too busy/not as committed anymore, so there's going to be a short hiatus. It will be refreshing. Thus, my focus will shift exclusively to the Body Electric, at least for a few months. =)

Interesting sample-styled vocal breaks and voice changing are making their way in the songwriting process for BE. I've been in a slight lyrical slump lately. Or perhaps it's a vocal melody slump. I like the lyrics I've been singing. They're mostly about subway chimes and lavender SGs.

Anyways, homework.

Woop Woop.

whoop whoop
smarnicalitation.
whoop.

snnnuf. clatter clatter.
slurrrp.

whoop whoop.

boosh.

A great many problems arise from the assumption that we should not be sad.

I'm 21 today.

Training the Nihilists

salutation abyss
pieces of helloldsmobiles
rolling square steelclad steed
simile
like or as if real
30 bucks for the part
I won't charge you
for labour.

nevertheless these
three or four lines
revolve like pie plates
juggled flaming for
eighteen years,
to no end,
and I edit them
effortless,
uninvested and
only curious what
you think, or we think.

salutation abysmal
I'd pick up the pieces
of hello without the vehicle
if I could
stop
travelling.

URGENT UPDATE

I need to stop skipping Dostoyevsky. I guess it's okay since I had a show last night. It went swimmingly, thank you for asking, blogospheric void.

I really love Thelonious Monk. I haven't listened to him for a while; I'm going to binge.

I'll be 21 next week. I'm going to shave.

"A manifesto is a communication made to the whole world, whose only pretension is to the discovery of an instant cure of political, astronomical, artistic, parliamentary, agronomical and literary syphilis. It may be pleasant, and good-natured, it's always right, it's strong, vigorous and logical. Apropos of logic, I consider myself very likeable." -Trista Tzara, from II, "Dada Manifesto on Feeble and Bitter Love."

Gonna do some cutups for funsies.

<4

Tonight is for strange combos.

I like steering canoes in zig-zags. I can tye-dye things. I didn't smoke all weekend and I felt great. I think things are going to be okay for a while.

age

The blood of the marker
is the same as my blood,
only darker.

Joanna Newsom- Ys

Mistaken identity, something I couldn't understand, words words words, lifeless and empowering. We secret conversations beneath the limbs of a swollen tree, bristling with naturalistic ego. Inhaling the hum of the everydays, sad love, we are nourished. What would you do for me if I asked?

"The meteorite is was causes the light
and the meteor's just what we see
and the meteoroid is a stone that's devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee."

I was crying myself to sleep and you just kept drifting in and out and asking me "What?"

There was a brief period of time when I was in my early teens that I thought I wanted to be a firefighter. Let me just say that I didn't do anything to pursue this. I didn't work out, I didn't take chemistry, I didn't read about firefighting or go talk to actual firefighters. I just thought that it would be a crazy thing to do for a living and that maybe I'd become strong by breathing smoke and using axes and saving cats from trees.

The dream was short lived because I think on some subconscious level I realised that I'm always late for everything, which is inconsiderate in general, but becomes a real problem when you're paid to be on a societally commissioned rescue squadron. I'm also not particularly strong or reliable. I'm very good at being lightheartedly social about a variety of topics, but I don't think people with smoke inhalation/charred flesh would really benefit from chatting about Obama or District 9 or Jameson or Al Purdy. I'm not even sure I care about these things.

That's false, I really care about Jameson and Al Purdy. And to a lesser extent District 9 and Obama. But only insomuch as they make me feel things. Paying attention to politics and entertainment isn't actually something that's important to do; you can live your whole life in the bubble of the immediate present and only know as much as you want to because it really only affects your life negatively to learn more on the subject (but how witty/connected/concerned you can seem in bars! Not so much in burning office towers.) The political sphere is something uncontrollable and forever frustrating and things are never good, they just become not all that bad sometimes. The players change, the game stays the same and we all exist in a society predicated on the violence of the now. The smallest aspects of my life are created through murder and that's just fine because it has to be.

But it isn't fine and I get really depressed and write songs with cryptic lyrics and think that somehow I'm contributing. My mom said that my aunt has depression issues that she needs to work out. I said we live in North America, everyone has depression issues. The only people I know who are really happy lead extremely visceral lives; rock climbing, travelling, living in the wildernes. Flying one way to Vancouver and finding their way back. There are answers in these lifestyles. They cannot simply be escape. Can they? Is this escapism akin to Wordsworth trying to "write in the language of the common man" in order to get in tune with a simple view of the world/emotions/existential ridiculousness? As if living a simple life could ever make life simple.

This morning my girlfriend legitimately asked me, "What's wrong with you?" I think this happens around this point in all of my relationships. It took us longer to get here than it ever has in the past, so now I'm alarmed and concerned. The funny thing is that her habits are basically the same, I'm just becoming frustrated with perfectly reasonable reactions to my unreasonable behavior. I feel like the things that make me attractive in the first place become grating and irresponsible when people feel like they need to rely on me for things. Is it really so bad to balk at someone requesting that you act like a normal human being? Probably.

Eating free lunch, drinking free beer at work. Things will be A-OK.

holistic

cool cool plastic
make a man out of me
make a small-eyed deer out of unsorted thoughts
make a monarch with crow's feet to make difficult decisions
skip breakfast or work or life today.

chime
notice oft-beskirted men and women,
damp at the crotch and edges of eyes,
curious of sudoku or horoscope or obituary,
smelted and smoked and cured;
perched mundanely amid dust particles,
water vapour, finely tapered.
chime chime chime

cool cool plastic
make a bottle full of oil
with a clearly printed label
and caress with sinking happiness
a surgic'ly constructed wound indifferent to stitch.

chime
notice many feathered flyers,
filled with air and malnutrition,
pillage strong ambivalent backs
of fronts where all the dumpsters live;
scattered timid swirled and sliced
looming great delivery truck
that honks to end a meal
chime chime chime

cool cool plastic
make everything out of me
so that I may not be anything.

I think I like that curls
are probably the only thing she manufactures. Ever.
I don't walk the space within
where the sadness dots the skin
but I'd like to be that kind of kin,
regardless of the weather.

Today is one of the days where I miss you really hard even though I'm generally pretty happy.

"You can't unring a bell, junior." -Tom Waits

something magnificent.

blinds and drapes, fines and rapes. Lost grapes in your refrigerator; I won't taste them.

the jeans are mostly stained with grass but there are other things, less present, that aver perception:::::::namely, your bodily fluids and oldest memories:::::::::::::::::your faces, changing shape and size::::::::::::::::::::thousands and thousands of digital photographicly emphasized longings.

A riverbed, soft with muck and sleeping sickness, narcoleptic nervousness climbs to new heights, which you avoid just in case the eyes cannot maintain their energiesuschrist,whenwillitend?

Masonaryo (Draft)

Subtle enchantress, your eyes are moving in squares and I care not to see where they land
might the distance between two and three break and take down the tyranny of idle hands
don't move quickly; feel so sickly sweet; it can be hard to breathe
birth your brothers; undercover, hidden by seasons and sleeves

If I had the time I'd have written a eulogy just for the sake of something to do
it's a story I'd write just to bore me, implore me please to be better for you
in the dregs of an unholy union transcendent light fallacies beautifully dance
in a room filled with fresh murdered flowers that wilt by the hour,
we've all had our chance to see.
To see.
To see.

Adrift in a sea of serious sleeping snakes,
A love so terrible it never fully goes away.

My life felt very real last night.

The Seeming Day

"It wasn't so long ago
that I professed a memory
of words catapulted weakly in restricted reverie.

smatch smarch smurchandise;
search in dyes
merchant eyes

epole htiw enoyreve
rof eht ekas fo ti?
yan.

subterfuge.
I'd like the walls to be cleaner.
New bedspreads and sheets; colours, painted colours in my mind.
But which colours are they?

straiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight and narrow.
poison arrows in my wheelbarrow,
gangrene thumb, bad soil, no fun.
pollute my eventide until the mourningtide comes.
yellow bristol hills
paper plasmic sun
stupid and elusive; in seclusion, everyone."

Former Underdog will be up and running (again?) in the soon to be past future. Emphasis on podcasts, but I will be contributing a lot of writing as well.

mmHmm!

worthless/priceless

I crushed you one time, between thumb and forefinger.
Wonder surrounds the meaning of flowering bruises...
growth in broken blood vessels, wounded flesh,
bringing forth the fruit of fleeting pain.

your face disappeared for a short while,
but it has returned with a vengeance.
I wonder where it went,
if photographs were taken in impression of itself,
contorting interestingly alone amidst a sea of bodies and blank heads.

Arranging the words just so means very little in the presence of bewildered kindness,
ensconced in love, I guess,
and the business of perpetual forgetting.

If I were an Einstein-Rosen bridge,
I'd make sure you were ever transported backward to stay just as you are(n't).

worthless/priceless.

Cry

somedays I stray and say I want to be just like you
how filtered can expression be,
with sights I didn't want to see,
to see to see to see to see right through
inside, behind, we walk straight lines
convinced that they're our own
too free with my body sometimes,
telling people who never should have known
and glaring aching symmetry,
is limiting,
it limits me;
from beds I've wanted to be free
from heads I've wanted to be free
but built into this precious thing,
nestling, cuddling, festering
cleaning, dreaming westward wings
could clear out notes from how I sing
with swollen wrapped presents to bring
I shake beneath a billowed cloud
of love so cavernous and kinged
it seems the dreams took on a life that murdered everything...

the songs they sing themselves
and I see you coming out
of houses in your wombs
that strangely rhyme with tombs
acoustics echo proud
of loudly distilled speech
encased in violent crowds,
the sweetness of a peach
the sourheartanthem child
the brittlempowered teen
cracked in impure thought
disposed to impure dream
fallacious as they come
convinced of the obscene
drowned in ancient books
that exist within the scheme
caressed by codgers,
lost and crossed by vivid vast regimes
and screams of gentle villagers
inventing future scenes,
supported by your poetry,
reinforced with knives
visions creeping through the walls,
the buildings of our lives
the planes, they shimmer poisonous
and thin beneath our eyes
and closure and composure form
elaborate disguise
constructed from your brilliance
the unpublished B-sides
the purple stamp inside my wrist
the purple bruising eyes
to take a punch while sitting down
to breathe drunken defeat
to tell the friends who aren't around
of everything you need
criminal submerged untruth
has faces coining terms
worth billions and billions
of lessons we don't learn
shattered fragments of asteroids
bewelded iron flasks
filling cannot fill the void
a Vaudeville gag in tact
words just matter for their sounds
they resonate with hate profound
they leave us manifest and bound
the Euro, dollar and the pound
my overdrawn chequing account
the fossils in the underground
and trains they vainly go around
sacred soil and burial grounds
were left untouched and noone found out why.
skip double dutch in spaces in the sky.
walk with a crutch even if it's a lie.
because when you let your pride into it,
the answers will just bleed right through it,
Cry.

"Please don't defend a silver lining/ around the halo of what is already shining."

Earlier this summer, the Dirty Projectors played the first full set I watched at Bonnaroo. It was Friday afternoon at 1:30 and I was completely blown away. David Byrne joined them on stage for "Knotty Pine."

Upon my re-arrival a Toronto, I discovered that they were playing a show! At Lee's Palace! For $13.50!! I became excited. Overjoyed, even. DP are getting quite a lot of hype, so it was unlikely that they would ever play a venue as small as Lee's upon subsequent visits to Toronto. I was relieved to have ticket in hand.

And then the unthinkable happened: they got in a car accident, presumably on the way to Toronto. The show was immediately cancelled. Despite my disappointment, I was relieved to hear that noone was seriously hurt in the accident.

So I returned my tickets and spent the 13.50 (which was more like 15 after service charge) on some tall cans of Old Milwaukee to drown my sorrows. I went home and listened to Bitte Orca endlessly.

But Joy! The show was rescheduled! For the same price! at the same venue! Viciously cool move on the band's part. They could easily have filled somewhere bigger, like the Phoenix or even Danforth Music Hall. And charged more. In the wake of that glowing Pitchfork review, it seemed as if tickets were going to be in high demand. Oh, and they weren't on Ticketmaster, which is wicked, because Ticketmaster is the motherfucking devil.

Interestingly enough, most of the tickets were sold at the door. The place was fucking rammed, too. The only time I've seen Lee's so packed was for Deerhunter last year. (i.e. another band that got tons of buzz because of favourable Pitchfork reviews).

The Dirty Projectors are one of, if not the, tightest and most technically proficient bands in indie rock right now. (note: I hate the label indie rock. As if absence of big business financial support implies something about the music itself. In philosophy, it matters; aesthetically, it shouldn't.) The Talking Heads comparison was made early and often because of their "world" music influences (a band listens to music that isn't from North American or Europe? HOLY SHIT. STOP THE PRESSES!) and because of Dave Longstreth's position therein as "Musical Director." While David Byrne never listed himself under this title within his band, he clearly masterminded a similar position. As such, I'm interested to see if Longstreth moves in similar directions onstage; designing huge multimedia performance art pieces to accompany his music, for example. While it's not the most environmentally friendly thing to be doing, I feel like our society ceases to give a crap about the environment when it comes to the presentation of art. (Radiohead's LED light show should be the accepted norm, not some radical off-the-wall artfuck idea. )

In any case, they absolutely slayed the show. One of the largest details that I missed at their Bonnaroo set was how incredible Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian are at their instruments as well as with their voices. Longstreth might be the one composing the mindboggling glitched out Ali Farka Toure styled guitar lines, but Coffman plays many of them in unison with him or creates chords and harmonies through complex interplay. For a good portion of the set (actually, for all of the non-Bitte Orca songs) Deradoorian was rocking the bass like an absolute champion. She also switched between guitar and keys throughout the set (and some of her keyboard work is INTENSE! In many cases it's masked by the fact that she plays in unison with Longstreth as well, but the result is a crazily rounded out synthy multi-instrumental tone of an already crazy riff, or lick, if you will.)

And can we talk about the drumming for a second? Do we have to? Brian McComber absolutely comes to life in a live setting. On record, the drums seem very melded around the guitar and vocal melodies (with the exception of Stillness is the Move and a few others) but live it's quite the opposite. His drumming really colours in and accents the songs in a way that more functional, less artistic and adventurous drummers fall short of.

I love that they open with 'Two Doves."

Before the encore, Longstreth turned to his band and said, "This is the last show of the tour. It's been a long tour, and it wasn't always easy. I just wanted to say thank you, you guys are the best ever. I love you." What can you say about something like that? Dave Longstreth seems a very genuine character, and all I can say is that I'm glad he's making music. Then they played "Flourescent Half Dome" and "Knotty Pine." The audience kept cheering after they finished the encore, but Amber Coffman came out and sheepishly explained that they didn't have any more songs to play.

I find this both an admirable and peculiar end to the show. DP are certainly a band with enough technical ability to get on stage, jam for a few minutes and blow most bands out of the water. But that kind of idea, just to play for the sake of playing without careful crafting behind the ideas seems contrary to the band's aesthetic. I would have even been interested to see Longstreth play a song solo, but that seems out of place too. Because while the whole collective (if that's what indeed it is) started off as his project, his brainchild, the band has such a communal energy with a centre fixed firmly in their insanely elaborate pop songs that improvisation and "taking the spotlight," so to speak, falls by the wayside. The selflessness of the performance is emphasized when Coffman and Deradoorian sing "Stillness..." and "Two Doves," respectively. Despite the fact that they take the lead vocals by themselves, the placement of these songs alongside their post-choral vocal work based songs serves to highlight the strength of the band as a whole by focusing on individual members. But they never play by themselves.

It's really quite a beautiful thing to behold.

thnking of writing SAs in short hnd, for funsies and cred. h8 this shit so bad. want 2 kill www culture.

"…that’s what Einstein said, if it has a flaw and its irreparable turn it into a feature. If you’re always burning the pancakes, put it on the marquee. Burnt Pancakes, 99 Cents. People who can fix anything with string are disappearing. I think most things can be fixed with string, but we need to be reminded of that. Except if you pour a fresca into your computer, I don’t think that will work. Or if you pour a coke in the back of your television the string won’t work. It’ll turn into a coffee table immediately."

Tom Waits. from the "irrelevant topics" interview on the Beck site.

Bonnaroo-m Service

Hey Hey Hey!

Steel Bananas///Issue 9, July 2009! Huzzah!

Check out my Bonnaroo article (as well as the rest of the content, because it's all pretty fucking rock n'roll) here.

Right on, brothers and sisters of the blogospheric void.

lysosomes.
analysis.
loosening, breaking, death--
decomposition.

"...make love to elizabeth taylor!
catch hell from richard burton!" -Dylan

brunette brunette brunetee,
how much stronger can you get
until the dye comes from your hair
we're surrounded everywhere
by dead sunsets-- in repair,
hoping once again to float in wild abandon.

Close (to the edit)

I have this involuntary fetish for my own name. Or perhaps history is catching up with me and playing little linguistic jokes with my tastes.
In the past year I've encountered two novels I've thoroughly enjoyed (or rather, I'm enjoying one of them right now) in which the main character is named Patrick.

I almost typed "the name character is mained Patrick."

In any case, the first was In the Skin of a Lion by Ondaatje and the one I'm reading now is A Splinter in the Heart by Al Purdy. I was delighted to discover the latter at that weird little huge cash only bookstore in the Eglinton subway station. It's Purdy's only work of prose; he's one of my favourite poets and I didn't know it existed. $7. It's really innocent (well, dementedly so, but still) and the dialogue leaves something to be desired, but his historiographic reimagining of Trenton, Ontario is really astounding. And his descriptions are wonderful...the everyday behaves insanely in the most mundane ways. It's quirky as fuck and I love it (although I dislike the word quirky. Well, not the word itself. Just the way people use it to describe things that evade easy description. But alas, I am guilty.)

I also discovered the album (Who's Afraid Of) The Art of Noise by the Art of Noise. It's their second(?) full length (it actually might be their first). The musical director is Trevor Horn, of The Buggles and late period Yes and producer of Frankie Goes to Hollywood (who I will be exploring next). I was first turned on to his work by a random vinyl copy of Adventures in Modern Recording by the Buggles that was literally given to me for no reason by my ex-girlfriend's father. I can't believe he didn't want to keep it; it's a fucking masterpiece. Interestingly enough, it's out of print, along with their debut record The Age of Plastic which features their montrously huge single "Video Killed the Radio Star." I still haven't heard that song in context, for fuck's sake! But I digress. The Art of Noise are basically an instrumental hip-hop band...but they were doing this shit in 1984! I'm so surprised that I'd never encountered them before. The record is really dope...it's like a J Dilla embryo with bad British teeth. Maybe Ratatat or Kno is a better comparison. I'm not sure.

Feeling good today. Perhaps I'll clean my room. But probably not. =)

Now with smear guard!

its quiet on the days when tiredness runs out and is replaced, no matter what.
letters betray me
ghfjdksla;sldkfjghjfdksla;slkdjg
an enjoyment of patterning!
The slow
cool
calm
fast
hot
bothered
desk has never moved or been satisfied by anything I've written atop it.
demented medical treatments.
surprising repulsive smells, inhaled willingly.
herman melville. \\\
pageantricyclical (is this a word? are you a word?), pedalling in beautiful circles.
today is a broken pencil waiting to be sharpened.

I'm probably getting a sketched tattoo of this photo of Sly Stone on my arm. I want the words "feels so good inside myself, don't wanna move" incorporated somehow.

In other news, "Pop Song" (which may be retitled "Human Rotation" later) is up in demo form on the myspace.

www.myspace.com/iamsingingthebodyelectric

Right on.

I always get throat infections. I want to get rid of my evil tonsils but I'm afraid it will radically change my voice, which I'm not okay with.

Back at work. I went to see Sonic Youth at Massey Hall. I went to see the Sea and Cake at the Supermarket. Generally a wicked way to recover from illness. Penecillin and tunes. Yum.

Virgil Cane is the name and I served on the Danville Train... 'til Stoneman's Cavalry came and tore up the tracks again.

Dirty Projectors cancelled due to auto accident. Glad that band is alive and well. Upset that I will not be able to hear "Stillness is the Move" and "Cannibal Resource" live tonight. Alas.

--------------------

Sediment floating in the tap water taps daughters back from a place where I've misplaced faith; Namely, myself. Heath is not not sickness but health itself. Potent, ever expanding as the universe. Almost called yesterday.

haha, my marks are so fucking bad this year. Ah well. I find it hilarious that I can get 90% on the two major essays for a course and still get a D+ overall. That's absolutely a feat beyond comprehension.

Note: I did some math and it is within comprehension. It's just surprising.

On another hand, I am at work on zero sleep because I opted to go sing Marvin Gaye at karaoke last night a drink a bit too much. I wasn't really planning to drink at all, but that ceases to be an option when pitchers are declared communal and beers are poured regardless of protest.

I'm wearing this dude's shirt. I haven't seen him in months.

Pride this weekend! Two band practices this weekend! Dirty Projectors tomorrow night! The Sea and Cake on saturday night! Something else for free later this week? I can't remember! NBA draft? Maybe?

Smothered in red hot coals, she wakes up calm. Her voice echoes through the multiverse and I can still hear it, even if nobody else can.

smothered in a panoramic view.
grass and bugbites.
The Bayview Extension Sings.

I think I'm going to go down to the well tonight and drink 'till I get my fill.

More on this later.

My high school guidance counselor parodied himself on TV.

Animal Collective kicked me in the brainospherically shaped coconut which is my mind. Something like a combination of God's semen and superstring theory competing for dominance in miniturity. Closed eye hallucinations. Open eye hallucinations. After the show finished I got outside before everyone else and lay down on the grass, looking up a tree and feeling the cool air from the lake wash over me. People's voices carried off to other countries.

New people are very interesting to be around because they don't know anything about you and you don't know anything about them. This seems an obvious statement, but there are a lot of walls to deal with when encountering a person. The complications of social interaction are astounding, given how non-central of an issue these fuckeries are. Or maybe they're the most central of issues and we're being distracted by the razzle dazzle of macro-economics and genocide and intergalactic exploration. How can I get beneath the skin, around the bones and curl up there with an intense feeling of youness?

All phrases can be contextualized by the phrase: "And everything was being pulled downward for some reason."

Nobody can tell you why gravity works. Outside the Bible, there is not historical record of a man named Jesus Christ existing.

How dense are our historical records? In 1 000 000 years, will someone be able to look up your credit card statements? Will what they find be beautiful and unsettling?

set 'em wild, set 'em wild, set them free-ee.

I feel like shit.
I cry out into the digital emptiness for assistance.
But there's still all this stuff to do.
And my throat is still so swollen I can't sing properly, and singing improperly makes it worse.
I want to finish my songs.
I don't want to get up at 6am for work every day for the next 3 1/2 months.
Not that it's difficult or anything.
I would just rather be exempt.

I got my jacket back today.
I left it in the bar in a safe place and it disappeared.
Things always disappear from safe places.
The A/C guy might have taken it, or someone might have stolen it, or it might still be here somewhere, he said.
It was on a hanger in the back, sunglasses in a different pocket than I left them in.
I'm sure someone was walking around in a parody of me.
How marvelous!

Saw another fisher.
Confidence is building, I guess.
Having discussions and then reading them in books.
Researching mundane things only to have others question me about them in unrelated ways without being aware of the aforementioned research.
I'm worried that his condition might be real, or that he might make it real by believing in it.
Where is the line?

I hope I will see you soon.

http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/06/04/29/

The drum tracks for "Neighbourhood" are finished. I'm stoked. This song is going to take a lot of work, but it will be so worth it.

I went to see Daft Punk Tribute last night at the El Mocombo. It was fucking dope. Jazz horn solos all over dance music? Are you kidding me, Tuna?

I would blame the government, but that wouldn't begin to cover it.

In full peaches and regalia, I parade with a kind of intensity.

Three new songs. Sean and Dennis and I will be getting together soontimes to arrange "My Neighbourhood is a Writer and it has No WORDS" sometime later this week. I meant to be able to do most of this myself, but I'm becoming increasingly dependent on the musical stylings of others. Which is totally fine with me, it just makes the going slower when I can't do everything alone.

The record is going to be called "Dancing About Architecture."

"Bodies on bodies on bodies on bodies, I don't feel like anybody...except for the fact that I know that I'm not, so I must be."

Be Well.

The bricks falling next door make me want to get drunk and climb a crane. My new employment has made me frivolous! I still refuse to answer the phone when the bank calls and they NEVER leave messages. Annoying bastards.

I am listening to the River really really really loud to drown out destruction. I've given this record to so many people.

I got some news today that would have been devastating 6 months ago and I couldn't be happier for the people in question. Feelin` good, baby, let's plant a garden and go on roadtrips.

Springsteen's love love love love love love will not let me down. Haha. I'm sure he's not singing that at me, macho man that he is.

I can't wait for my voice to clear up a bit so I can finish some vocal tracks =)

Elaborately colour coded essays are in the works. I may have bitten off more than I can chew.

Kris, here's that new song I couldn't send you properly:

http://www.myspace.com/iamsingingthebodyelectric

Give me that funk, baby. Fuck yes, don't stop.

Prince's "Sign O' the Times" is pretty fucking sick. Today is going to be incredible.

"The reason I like the instrumentals is because they haven't got any words!" -Joel Plaskett

The recording for the Grim Preachers record is finished. Wickedness.

The recording for the Body Electric is far from finished. I have a tracklist, though. Which is REALLY something, considering how long some of these songs have been in the works.

I will sit and listen to Station to Station and be pleased with the fact that nothing is wrong at all. People are predictable and that's just fine with me.

"I play for money but I sing for free." -Joel Plaskett

Joyfully baked, going to record 2 hit wonder with the Preachers. I'm fucking stoked.

www.myspace.com/iamsingingthebodyelectric

There are a couple new things up. One off cover, one off new art-punk song. Everything will be combed over and improved once the ideas have been placed in the life-world rather than the nonspecific culture of my brainiage.

Projects: an album of acoustic love songs named after Chomsky texts. "At War with Asia" is almost complete. I'm still writing Failed States and Hegemony or Survival. Necessary Illusions will probably be last.

Also, consider the possibility of unexpected encounters with giant cats. I saw a fisher last night, I think. It might have been something else. It was as big as a fox but had the rounded face of a cat. It was eating birds in front of an apartment building at Leslie and Sheppard. I soundtracked it with Akron/Family.

Etatization. You deal with it, I won't.

I like the idea of the "Life-world" as put forth by Habermas.

Interestingly enough, I wrote a lyric two days ago to the tune of "semen on your back like an oil painting." Later in the song it becomes "semen on the back of an oil painting."

Collective history is fucked up. It makes me want to delete old blogs, emails, text messages. The other takes the form of overwhelming swarms of information. The self is blurred and smeared in zeros and ones.

Bananamour by Kevin Ayers is amazing. Artists who fly just below the surface of fame are so compelling.

"I said, 'I feel very happy. Happy as can be. And I feel free!'
She said, 'You're not happy, you're just stoned!!!!!!!!!!!!"


These two lines may be my relationships with every woman ever. They are the only two lines in the song "Beware of the Dog," which ends the record in epic fashion. I see myself making love in them. I see myself smoking chronic in the summer sun; I see indifference building in a different building. I refuse to enter. I prefer to re-evaluate what it means to care. I suppose that's why I don't have anyone to call at 1:30am anymore.

But I digress. What I mean to say is that the innocuous ways in which you structure the options on the multiple choice pop quiz that is your life is up to you. Well, to a degree. No man can deny the power of preconfigured reality. It's pretty much got you by the balls, in that you have no balls without it. Although I suppose it can be said that nobody has any balls at all otherwise we'd all just speed off towards the hysterical endgame of this um....endgame. hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Hey sister moses, if you'd like to undercut me, I'll wait for you outside of this cult of authority.

THANK GOD FOR MENTAL ILLNESS. and addiction.

and gullibility, and friendship and kevin ayers and bananas and bandannas.

Indifference. In difference. Inside the difference. The difference between what? Caring and not caring? or am I placed somewhere betwixt the letters. I wouldn't want to be in between those fucking fs. Fs are the douchebags of the alphabet. Phrom here on in, they will be replaced with phs.

I phorget exactly how I got on this tip, but I must say I'm having a time.
I phorget exactly how I got on this trip, but I must say I'm having a time.

oh lord, I'm metaphorgetful. I seem to have punned!

remember only this: Quoting John Lennon is all well and good; getting him to quote you is tricky. But we persevere.

Sexual archaeology. The erotic isn't dead. Ah, the purity of your spirit.

I am given to funk and reggae. I am given to keyboard fetishism. I am given to you, to us. Delicious. Be sure to pause and ponder, to walk and wander over the flavour's many contours. It desires you.

Monster Movie Tago Mago Ege Bamyasi Future Days

I improvised and recorded 5 songs this evening. It was a worthwhile creative exercise.

Can are quickly becoming one of my favourite bands (although I've not yet put the time in to love them truly):

And then fire!!!!!!!!!

I'm creating a sonic spectacle =)
No part can exist without the whole. Hooray!

My heels.

They're made for digging in. They ache, they ache, they ache. As surely as I cannot change these things, I cannot get back to sleep. There's so much power in powerlessness.

What does it mean to produce something meaningful?

"Choosing the exact word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug."

I have joints and basketball and funk music and my sexy detailed new car smell telecaster and sense of worthless worth that makes me happy.

Stress of the attempted double all-nighter. I fell asleep far earlier than I would have liked. But I suppose that's always the case.

I feel proud and disabled. Is it possible to be jealous of yourself? Does that signify some kind of personal disconnect from reality? I covet the things I can easily have but don't because I can't.

Gliding is a good way to move, it hides the constant stutter of my footsteps. I'm glad someone else's agony is in your body, so to speak.

"Hence it cannot not be conceived without correlative knowledge." Puke. Focus. Fuck yourself blind.

This was a good pep talk.

More Songs About Buildings and Food

I feel a bit uneasy today. I live where I live and the way that I live is endless. Until I die. I swallow a sword and fill out a general survey about my personality. My favourite television programs define me. My favourite records are best sellers. I am totally completely satisfied and none of this is a lie.

My love is mediated. And medicated.

Headhunters

My body is only a piece. I find you in ascending melodies. Their hallways are crowded and intimate- the kind of place where strangers groweatchangefeellosethemselves the same way that I do. Presentation is nothing if not immaculate.

And the smell is that of fresh fruit, sliced.

"I know it's not much, but it's everything."

I'm fairly certain that my life is becoming, I kid you not, a reality show about drag queens.

Cellino and Barnes own a part of the Buffalo Bills.
If you lived here, you'd be home right now.

Sing in a round! Rejoice!

Part one: clouds are seen near the surface of the lake. the endless feeling of something enormous flying above your head. trees bending visibly in the wind, stretching the definition of physical impossibility. legs, arms, bodies, minds intertwined. somewhere, a loon calls. AM radio. one way transmission is undemocratic. ah, but rescued by the dial. station to station, epic paid vacations, sublation. At about seven degrees, layers come off. I miss the sweet, slowburning flame.

Today (so far): The Impressions-This is My Country/The Young Mod's Forgotten Story, Sunset Rubdown-Random Spirit Lover, Of Montreal-The Sunlandic Twins, Blind Faith-Blind Faith, King Crimson-In the Court of the Crimson King, Sonic Youth- Dirty.

"Alack, and what shall good old York there see
Unpeopled offices, untrodden stones?
And what hear there for welcome but my groans?
Therefore, commend me; let him come not there
To seek out sorrow that dwells everywhere."
-Duchess of Gloucester, Richard II, Act I, Scene ii.